Tagged: Globe and Mail
Harper’s bucket defence of illegal robocalls
The Harper government has mounted a classic bucket defence* against charges it illegally steered opposition voters to faraway, fake polling stations in a deliberate attempt to discourage them from voting. Their defenders say: 1. Nothing serious happened. 2. It happened to us too. 3. There’s no proof we did it. 4. In fact, it was the Liberals who did it. 5. The calls didn’t work anyway. 6. Voters don’t care about it. 7. It’ll blow over in a day or two.
Some of this commentary is just the predictable party-line pandering from pro-Harper media, but a Globe and Mail story purporting to show that the robocalls failed to reduce voter turnout rests on a surprising abuse of logic and statistical analysis.
Globe reporter Éric Grenier compared ridings with robocall allegations with ridings that had none. He found slightly higher voter turnout in robocall ridings. He also found that turnout in those ridings had increased more over the 2008 federal election than it had in non-robocall ridings
From this Grenier concluded that the robocalls “failed miserably” (the words of the headline) and that “Turnout was not much affected” (his own words). His data justifies neither conclusion. The turnout-suppressing impact of the robocalls may simply have been overwhelmed by one or more turnout-enhancing factors, such as what he acknowledges were tighter contests in the robocall ridings, or keener interest in what voters saw as a landmark election. The pertinent question is not whether voter turnout was higher or lower than other ridings or previous elections, but whether it would have been higher still without the robocall campaign.
That question—what would turnout have been without the robocall campaign?—is counterfactual and therefore not susceptible to proof. The flaw in Grenier’s reasoning is so basic and so obvious, it’s a wonder no editor caught it.** Given the “failed miserably” headline, however, it’s perhaps more likely his editors were egging him on.
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* The bucket defence, a Paul Wells or possibly George Will coinage, is akin to Freud’s Kettle Defence. That’s when a neighbor returns a borrowed kettle with a hole in it. Confronted, the neighbor responds, “The hole was there when you lent it to me. I never borrowed the kettle. Besides, I returned it in perfect condition.”
** Grenier backs off his claim that “turnout was not much affected” ever so slightly in this subsequent blog post.
Facing up to an unflattering mirror – Feedback, updated
Aside from a small issue of geography, reader Ivan Smith says the Globe and Mail’s take-out on racism in Nova Scotia, got it right.
The popular notion that racism has disappeared from Nova Scotia is just as wrong as that geography. Racism is still here. Not as bad as it was in the 1960s or even the 1980s, but we still have a long way to go.
How many Nova Scotians know that there were black slaves here?
Smith recommends Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings, a book and subsequent film depicting the treatment of blacks in Nova Scotia in the 1780s, available on DVD here.
A copy of that DVD should be available in every public library and school library in the province.
[Update]. Bob Collicutt reports:
There is one copy of Rough Crossings in the Halifax Regional Library system. As of 6:45 a.m. today there are 12 holds on it, including mine. Thanks to you & Ivan Smith for making us all aware of this film.
Channeling Duplessis
Writing on the US website The Daily Beast, Ottawa patent consultant and occasional Globe and Mail columnist Sheema Khan condemns Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s bill to ban the traditional Muslim niqab. In a stand reminiscent of Maurice Duplessis’s Grande Noirceur, Charest would ban religious veils on grounds they “subjugate” women. Khan, who holds a PhD in physics from Harvard, nails the double-standard at play:
The most vehement reactions against face-veiling have come from women, who have projected their own fears, assumptions, and judgments onto attire worn by a minority within a minority. They think of the bad old days when the Catholic Church controlled women’s lives in Quebec. They pity the present-day lives of women in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. “We will save you from your own foolishness and your own delusional beliefs, for your own good,” they seem to say. “We will bring you to liberation by force. You Muslim women really aren’t independent until you embrace our lifestyle choices.”
In the meantime, they would deny us access to language lessons, hospitals, courts, schools, and public transportation—all services that help immigrants assimilate. But at the same time, they condemn the Saudi religious police for hounding women who don’t dress according to that government’s dictates.
“Not my department,” says Harper
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s insistence that the torture of prisoners Canada hands over to Afghan authorities is a problem for Afghanistan, not Canada, calls to mind Tom Leher’s lyric about rocket scientist Wernher von Braun’s apparent indifference to the consequences of his work on Germany’s World War II V2 rocket:
Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
‘That’s not my department’, says Wernher von Braun.
In fact, as Bob Rae points out in the same Globe and Mail article, transferring prisoners with the expectation they may be tortured is a violation of the Geneva Conventions – a war crime, in other words.
The blithe indifference to torture shown by both the Harper and Martin governments is a marked departure from the international standards Canadians are accustomed to upholding. But it pales by comparison with the US approach. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald (here) and the New York Times (here) have chilling recapitulations of the US torture and subsequent seven-year imprisonment at Guantanamo, without charge, of Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, during which he was interrogated not about terrorism but about Al Jazeera’s operations.
Says Greenwald:
The due-process-free imprisonment of this journalist by the U.S. government was ignored almost completely by the American media (other than Nicholas Kristof), even as it righteously obsessed on the far shorter imprisonment of journalists by countries such as Iran and North Korea (hey, look over there at those tyrannical countries – they imprison our journalists!!!!!). Aside from al-Hajj, we’ve imprisoned numerous other journalists without charges in Iraq — and continue to this day to do so — including ones who work for Reuters and the Associated Press.
Christie’s comeuppance
Ten days ago, we speculated on the embarrassment Globe and Mail journalists must feel over columnist Christie Blatchford’s obsequiousness to the Harper government, as displayed in her columns attacking diplomat Richard Colvin. Paul Wells of Maclean’s has an interesting and detailed follow-up in his Inkless Wells blog. Moneyquote:
In 20 years in journalism I have never seen anything resembling the systematic and sustained repudiation to which Christie Blatchford, the Globe and Mail’s marquee columnist, is being subjected by her own newspaper. There is room in any good paper for disagreements among colleagues, and frankly there should, for a long time now, have been room for more of that at the Globe. But this goes further. This is breathtakingly methodical.
Wells goes on to give chapter and verse on Blatchford’s extraordinary comeuppance.
Colvin torture testimony – editorial roundup
Here is a roundup of newspaper editorials about Richard Colvin’s tesimony about Canadian military and civilian complicity in torture.
If his account is correct, the federal government was so determined to turn a blind eye to the treatment of the detainees by the Afghan National Directorate of Security and police that it discouraged record-keeping and other documentation – highly uncharacteristic behaviour in any bureaucracy. On this, Mr. Colvin gave evidence from his own direct experience, not hearsay.
The word “cover-up,” which evokes the Watergate scandal and a concealment of wrongdoing within an institution, or even obstruction of justice, may be excessive in this context. Instead, there is reason to believe that several parts of Canadian government preferred to look the other way, when informed that the Afghan government was abusing detainees, far from adhering to its side of the agreement.This week, the dismissive antagonism of some Conservative MPs, including Mr. MacKay’s parliamentary secretary, Laurie Hawn, in response to Mr. Colvin’s testimony, raises a disappointing inference that partisanism continues to prevail over a sense of common humanity.
[T]he reaction of the Harper government is not reassuring. First it claimed Colvin’s testimony would breach national security – a dodge used too often and too cynically, around the world, to cover up all manner of wrongdoing. By yesterday, the line was that Colvin is a dupe of the Taliban. This is preposterous.
Abuses are inevitable in wartime. But it’s not acceptable for our government to systematically undercut our national standards.
Ottawa must demonstrate its total opposition to torture, for the sake of Afghanistan and for the soldiers we send there.
[A]ll signs point to a culture of complicity at the highest levels of the Canadian Armed Forces and federal government, where the operative code was see no evil, hear no evil and write no evil in diplomatic cables home. That and never return calls from the Red Cross.
That pattern of damage control emerges from Colvin’s jarring testimony to a parliamentary committee probing the government’s handling of the issue… Conservatives remain in deep denial on the issue – and deeply partisan, including shots at the opposition for “accept(ing) the word of the Taliban.”
…When the first warnings of mistreatment arose in 2006, [Defence Minister Peter] MacKay’s predecessor, Gordon O’Connor, gave blithe assurances that the Red Cross was on top of things. Yet in Kandahar, the army was pointedly ignoring Red Cross phone calls, Colvin testified. He also suggested that the torture allegations inflicted grave damage on the army’s campaign to win the “hearts and minds” of increasingly alienated Afghans.
As for MacKay, he was foreign minister at the time his most senior officials insisted that torture allegations never be put in writing. Were they protecting MacKay, or was MacKay protecting himself?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s top officials were also part of what Colvin described as a conspiracy of silence. All along, Harper vigorously defended the government line that there was no cause for alarm. Now, the harm has been done – to innocent Afghans, our war effort, and Canada’s credibility in demanding that human rights and the rule of law be respected by other countries.
To be blunt, Mr. Colvin was our war crimes insurance. By digging into allegations that Afghan security forces were torturing prisoners we sent them, he was doing the right thing to ensure Canadians did not one day find themselves sitting in the dock before the Court of International Justice facing charges for being complicit in a war crime…
Did the government and military act on these alarms? Ministers denied evidence of torture and did nothing about detainee handovers until a newspaper reported allegations in the spring of 2007 – at which point Mr. Colvin says he was told by superiors to stop putting his concerns in writing. Even now, Tory MPs are portraying Mr. Colvin as a dupe of Taliban misinformation. Defence Minister Peter MacKay says there are no proven cases of abuse and the diplomat’s evidence “does not stand up.”
Really? Since the government didn’t follow up – a gross negligence – how would it know? If the senior intelligence officer on the scene (and now our senior intelligence officer in Washington) wasn’t worth listening to, who was? What could be a greater disaster for the mission and for Canada than being entangled in a war crime? In still failing to grasp the gravity of this warning, the government is losing Canadian hearts and minds, too.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, at President Hamid Karzai’s inauguration Thursday, noted that in 2007 strict conditions were imposed on transferring detainees, who are now visited by Canadian Corrections officials. But Mr. Colvin’s evidence suggests the early warnings of the Red Cross were right, yet ignored by official indifference.
Such information is critical to catching weaknesses that might undo Canada’s pledge to ensure the safety of detainees. Mr. Colvin’s evidence should not have become a bone in the partisan, parliamentary dog fight, but Ottawa fought to keep him, and others, from appearing at the military commission. The Harper government must let the independent inquiry to proceed unobstructed so the evidence can be tested vigorously under oath.
For MacKay and Cannon to attack Colvin as not credible is, itself, not credible. Why would Colvin, presumably credible enough to be posted to Washington, risk his career with baseless allegations? For MacKay and Cannon to demand absolute proof is also specious. Nobody goes to court with absolute, irrefutable proof, only strong evidence.
Colvin torture testimony – cartoon roundup
Dale Cummings in the Winnipeg Free Press:
Aislin in the Montreal Gazette:
Malcolm Mays in the Edmonton Journal:
Brian Gable in the Globe and Mail:
Gary Clement in the National Post:
Annals of (anti-vaccination) humbug – feedback
A Contrarian reader who is also a public health nutritionist responds to our post about Fralic’s foolishness:
This Globe and Mail article convinced me of the importance of getting the H1N1 vaccination. There is so much misinfomation out there, and I hold health reporter Andre Picard’s coverage in high regard.
Nova Scotians can find the location and schedule of immunization clinics in their District Health Region here. [On the map, click on your DHA.]
I plan to take [my children] to the Baddeck clinic and get us done before the rush.
Contrarian expects tomorrow’s Baddeck clinic, the first in Cape Breton, to be a madhouse. Some physicians will offer ‘flu shots in their offices.
Capitalism fails again: why you can’t get a Kindle in Canada – updated
The Globe and Mail’s Omar El Akkad has the skinny on why Amazon’s hugely successful Kindle book reader, now available in more than 100 countries, still can’t be purchased in Canada. Moneyquote:
Sources say the delay may be due to newly discovered competition. Until recently, the wireless technology used by the Kindle was available only through Rogers. This week, however, Bell and Telus announced a new next-generation network that will go live in November, giving Amazon more options to choose from for their device. The two carriers announced this week that they will use the new network to begin offering Apple’s iPhone, previously only available through Rogers.
Neither Telus nor Rogers would comment for the story, and Bell said little. One has to wonder whether Rogers played too cute by half, trying to hold Amazon (and Apple) to ransom when it was the only game in town, and now suddenly finding itself with eager competitors for Kindle and iPhone customers. Says El Akkad:
There seems little doubt that Canadians will eventually get their hands on the Kindle, the only question is when. If Amazon does decide to partner up with Bell or Telus, then Canadian customers can expect the device as early as next month – only a few weeks after the Cook Islands.
Mike McKenzie responds:
You should pick up a Kindle on your next trip to Cuba. If you take a few cases of toilet paper, a set of wrenches, and some fish hooks you could barter for one.
